Dr. Yair Erez, economist at McKinsey London: The model of a patient coming to the doctor with symptoms will not last.

Erez said these things at a conference held by Pharma Israel and dealt with the need to recognize the health budget as an investment and not as an expense. Guy Goretzky, CEO of Pharma Israel: Pharmaceutical companies must help everyone see the overall picture

The model of a patient who comes to the doctor when he has a symptom and goes to the hospital and there they help him or not will not last. It is too expensive for many countries that are trying to take control of health spending, said Dr. Yair Erez, a senior project manager at McKinsey in London last week at a conference held by Pharma Israel and dealt with the need to recognize the health budget as an investment and not as an expense.

The conference, which took place on January 7 at the Dan Acadia Hotel, dealt with the need for long-term financial planning of health services in a time of economic slowdown. The conference was attended by senior officials of the health system, including Prof. Roni Gamzo, Director General of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Mor Yosef, Director General of the National Insurance, Ran Sa'ar, Director General of Maccabi Health Services, as well as economists and treasurers such as Moshe Bar Siman Tov, deputy in charge of budgets at the Ministry the treasure.

"In order to control the increase in expenses, many countries began to increase the regulation of drug prices. Although with success - but the expenditure on medicines is a very small part of the expenditure on health. The weight of other expenses, such as who treats the patient, when the treatment is transferred to a higher (and more expensive) authority and whether technological means can be used to replace some of the treatments performed by doctors and nurses." Dr. Erez said.

"The last 50-60 years have brought medical progress and the price is known as the two percent problem. The health systems grow every year by two percent more than the rate. Over time, if the trend continues and it doesn't seem to stop in one decade the spending on health will be well over 10% and in three decades it will be unfinanceable. And even if a miracle happens and spending on health increases by only 2011 percent over the years, the situation still doesn't get any better. In 2012-XNUMX, leaders began to understand that this was the most burning expression placed before them.

In England, they came to the understanding that the hospital model should work differently and led to the bankruptcy of a large hospital in South London that is used as a pilot, and to more efficient management even though it remains under public management. Another example of improving service to patients while saving a lot of money is carried out in India, where an entrepreneur has opened an ophthalmology system in which the doctors specialize in a dedicated specialty in eye surgery (mainly cataract), even the lenses are produced in-house, and the nurses also receive dedicated training to treat eye surgery and patients. In this way, it is possible for millions of Indians to receive treatment at a Western level, without incurring the huge expenses that the West has for the medical services system.
The CEO of Pharma Israel, Guy Goretzky, said in a conversation with the science website: "This day is designed to create a slightly different, new discourse where it will be possible to see health spending from other angles as well, to look further ahead and think about long-term planning in the system. The needs and requirements of the desert system are so acute and consume so many resources that sometimes we cannot stop and look at how we can do it a little differently."

"We can plan further, how we want to see the health basket, how we want to allocate the resources, how we can create a regulatory plan for the next five years and not run and close the gaps all the time in front of the world, but take the time as much as possible and create a kind of common thought. That's why we brought all the partners to the table and representatives of the entire system are here at the conference, including candidates for the Knesset. It is also very important to send a message in the upcoming elections that health is a central issue, not only financially, but also socially, and it concerns us all."

What is the interest of the pharmaceutical companies?
"The international pharmaceutical industry represents over a million workers worldwide in seventy countries, we bring all this knowledge, all these resources, all this professionalism and international standards to the healthcare system. We also have a great commitment to the pharmaceutical world, but we understand that proper planning, a holistic view of the system will ultimately benefit all parties, including the industry itself. When you increase the pie, everyone benefits. Sometimes we can put the resources to produce this think tank."

In a panel that dealt with the question of how the national expenditure on health can be turned into an investment, Prof. Gabi Ben Nun, of the Department of Health Systems Management at Ben Gurion University, said: "A long-term examination of the national expenditure on health shows that a major share of this expenditure constitutes an investment that contributes to the growth of the economy, the decision makers must Take this into account when they deal with the health budget. Morbidity has a direct impact on unemployment and economic growth. For example: the great economic burden of mental health illness is now recognized throughout the western world - there is a direct connection between mental illness and unemployment, crime and violence. In contrast, the national expenditure on mental health currently constitutes only half a percent of GDP - while the cost of mental illness in OECD countries currently stands at 3-4%.

"We live in an era where we measure investment against output. It is important to invest in health and do it in the right places. What is the right investment in health? It is difficult to isolate an investment from a result, and in health the difficulty is even greater, because an economic investment in health is not reflected in an economic result", said Prof. Shlomo Mor Yosef, CEO of the National Insurance Institute.

Prof. Haim Bitterman, the chief physician of Klalit Health Services, said at a conference surrounding the work of the Medicines Basket Committee that "expanding the basket's budgeting would have solved all the problems, a huge addition is not required in order for all the significant treatments and technologies to enter the health basket. Care must be taken to create an egalitarian basket by providing wider financing for the basket, along with the development of additional models and solutions such as risk sharing agreements."

The Director General of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Roni Gamzo, said at the conference that "we are witnessing the inflation of costs in the private health system, which affects the functioning of the public system and the way services are provided in it. The Ministry of Health provides the public with services at a cost of NIS 35 billion. However, unfortunately there is still a gap between the services we provide and the image of care in the public system. The service experience is an issue that the office handles as part of the agenda regarding medical care. In the two years that I have served as CEO of the Ministry, we have achieved an improvement in leading changes in the system and a greater presence of the Ministry in discussions with the government and with the Ministry of Finance. However, for me, one of the biggest failures of the ministry is the addition of resources to the health system in the form of the thousand beds that were added to the hospitals, this is an addition that is insufficient and barely covers the increase in the population."